


Spur

by absolutelyCancerous (cal1brations)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, i guess, it's definitely not au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 02:44:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cal1brations/pseuds/absolutelyCancerous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suiting up for battle--two instances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spur

He doesn’t think he’s ever trembled so badly trying to do his own damn belt.

Why are there so many fucking belts holding these uniforms together in the first place? Whoever decided straps and belts would be what hold them together in battle deserves a blade through the skull, he decides angrily, fingers dumbly trying to press the latch through the dignified hole in his belt.

“Jean?”

He jumps so severely, he drops the belt he’s currently trying to do together at the top of his right thigh, breath leaving him so fast, it almost elicits a whimper as he looks to his instigator.

Marco is offering a smile, such a  _sweet_  smile— how can he stand to look like that, especially now?— and Jean finds that he hasn’t got a logical thought in his head. Just great, for a man about to face Hell head-on. He swallows loudly; it suddenly hits him that he’s the last in the barracks, another blow to his quickly-crumpling pride.

Jean sighs, pressing his palms to his forehead. He hopes his look of panic and fret doesn’t come across as strong as it’s thrumming in his veins.

“I— oh, man,” Marco says, and Jean almost,  _almost_  freaks out with just those words alone, but Marco continues with a lopsided smile, “Your straps are  _all_  crooked.”

Jean tries to defend himself, mouth open and everything, but his empty head doesn’t have any ammunition to spew out. He watches Marco step in front of him, hands lifting to fix the buckle over the center of his chest— when Marco tightens it, it hurts, digs into familiar bruises that pattern all over his body.

He grimaces. “You’re doing it too tight.”

Marco has the humanity in him to loosen it, but it’s still very tight. He wiggles it into proper place over Jean’s being, makes sure it doesn’t sag or hang in the wrong places on his back; a mistake in gear is like shooting yourself in the foot, and such a clumsy death would not be appropriate for Jean, not in the slightest.

“I had to get help with mine, too,” Marco admits as he undoes Jean’s belt, in what could be a promiscuous action, but Jean is too frazzled to pick up on it (though he still blushes, probably subconsciously). Marco slides the halves through his belt loops more properly, then buckles it over again, making sure there is no loose ends to flap and dangle. He does this all so surely, so definitely, that Jean feels a little relaxed watching him, doing something that he is so convinced he can do.

“Especially on the lower ones.”

Jean tries to laugh at that, but it sounds like a sigh, because his voice his scared stiff in his throat. “Those ones always get me, too.”

Marco smiles, so Jean tries to smile back, but it comes out as more of an eased grimace. Marco gets it. He doesn’t do more than nod his head in reply.

He has to kneel down to bother with the straps on Jean’s legs, because he can’t jackknife over at the hips for as long as it takes to widdle them up and into place, then to actually buckle them. Those bruises are always tender, because the pull on them is directly from his hips which get yanked around the most. Jean makes a few hisses and curses when Marco straps them too tight, and Marco laughs at the fact Jean’s thighs twitch when he yelps out.

When he finishes with the straps, he stands up straight and holds his hands towards Jean, as if displaying him for himself.

“It probably gets easier the more you do it,” Marco comments, but there’s the unspoken grief of the fact no one should have this be an easy, everyday occurrence.

Jean sighs, tucking in his shirt (for the twelfth time; it’s becoming a bad, nervous habit) and willing his embarrassment to recede back to the Not Something To Be Dealing With Right Now part of his brain, along with his rattled nerves.

Jean’s lips twist into a frown. “I owe you one.”

Marco laughs, it’s a sarcastic sound, and Jean marvels a little at how Marco isn’t as torn as he is.

“This one’s on the house,” Marco replies easily, moving to their bed to grab Jean’s coat, laid out in wait. He shakes it out, though it’s still clean from the ceremony from the night before (where Jean had all his confidence, bragging about making sixth in the top ten—where has it gone?), before handing it to Jean. His hand does not shake.

Jean takes it quietly, sliding his arms into each sleeve with care, tugging it to sit properly on his shoulders. Marco’s hands are warm against his neck when he fixes Jean’s collar, moving it to sit up straight.

“Tomorrow will be different.”

Jean feels himself frown more, but Marco seems content with the statement, like he’s just figured out the world were a goddamn sphere.

Jean gives him a little push against the chest, just to put some space between them again. “Stop that,” he says, and feels the tiniest smirk tug at the corners of his lips. “You sound like a moron.”

“Hope isn’t moronic.”

They’re simply staring at each other now. Marco watching Jean watching Marco. It’s a loaded statement, in the sense that Marco isn’t only talking about their future as people, but Jean’s being as merely  _Jean_.

Jean stomps his boot on the floor when he takes a step forward, his hand slapping to Marco’s arm in gesture.

“Let’s move.”

His voice is back, stiff and stern and strategical. Weakness no longer trembles in his eyes, and his hands have stopped shaking entirely.

Marco stumbles in turning around, but they move to the rendezvous to the rest of their squad (jogging to make up for lost time). They speak worlds in their shared silence the whole way.

———-

Jean knows every strap now, could probably put his gear on while blindfolded and get it all fastened correctly. It’s less about how to do it and more about how it feels, and Jean is most certainly used to the feel of straps digging into him, weighing him down and saving his life too many times to count.

He does the buckles fairly quickly, because he doesn’t have to focus on getting his hands to stop shaking anymore. Nerves do not consume him now when he hears the warning bells and the terrified voices.

Jean adjusts his belt buckle (the one actually at his waist) before he slide his coat on his shoulders. He tugs it down to settle properly, just as he always has, although these days, there are only his own hands to fix his collar, straighten it up.

He walks into battle with his head held high— he is not above these people that march beside him, tremble and whisper beside him. He is  _one_  of them. One of the many that pray, pray, pray they will be coming home tonight.

There’s something hollow about battle, about everything, nowadays. He  _can_  place what it is, but chooses not to address it ever; ignoring blatant things should be enough to make them stop hurting.

He hears Eren talking distantly in the moment being, he says something about hope that literally makes Jean spit on the ground, scuff it away with his boot in one swift motion that he wills to ease the sudden sickness that rises in his throat with a mask of haughty anger. He doesn’t want to hear anymore about hope or the future.

 _Hope is idiotic_ , he thinks coldly, rationally, walking swiftly away from words that make him feel ill. Straps dig into all the wrong places on him, making his body ache in protest from his movements, but he does not pay any mind to the dull pain that surfaces with every harsh, purposely-angry step. He grinds his teeth together. Pretends it’s the dust in the air that makes his eyes water. Wishes he could hear someone talking to him rationally, easily, even in the face of the worst, with stupid freckles and choppy hair that needed so, so badly to be trimmed to evenness. 

_Survival is what matters now._

He leaves the hoping part to his final resort. For now, he prepares to fight. 


End file.
